


bound not by blood

by Cherrakinn



Series: Cherry's Originals [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Dragons, Happy Ending, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrakinn/pseuds/Cherrakinn
Summary: not all families are bound by blood
Series: Cherry's Originals [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517135
Kudos: 1





	bound not by blood

Igna, a dragoness with sparkling ruby scales and intelligent green eyes, was smaller than the popular African Elephant. Living in the deep woods, in a cave with all kinds of things added and changed to fit her want for comfort, she was far from any kind of savage, fire breathing lizard. Igna was a creative soul, gathering materials from the woods or sending off something to barter for what she could not scavenge. Her cave was covered with crafts, paintings and clumsily made quilts and blankets. Fumbled embroidery attempts, attempts at paper snowflakes, decorations and ornaments, even pots and jars of her own making were everywhere to be seen. The only true ability one could claim she possessed was the one to add a true touch to everything she created, a special kind of flare to them that drew the eyes and allowed her work to sparkle and shine even when it was shoddy or clumsy, beginners work.

The one thing people always forget about dragons, of course, is that among many things… they are parents. They raise young, they teach them and allow them to grow and explore under a watchful eye and careful help. Such was true of Igna as well, even if her child did not have honed claws, sharp horns and teeth, or even scales. Delicate skin, soft tussles of hair, and absolutely no survival skills of its own, Igna had found herself the mother of nothing short of a human baby. Left alone in the woods, surrounded by carnage and misery, she could not simply leave it there to die. And so, with careful claws, she had returned to the cave with the child.

Raising a human child, she had quickly discovered, was much more difficult in some ways than raising her own kind. Humans took far more care and attention, required different things. They could not eat most things, and they needed to drink certain things, get the right nutrition. She had spent many hours scouring through books and scrolls she had collected through her ages of life, finding anything she could. If ever there was such an odd pairing, she had never seen it, but she was determined to make it work. Thus, it began, the short years of doing whatever she could to keep the child alive and happy.

Igna, for all her ignorance of human children, didn’t think she’d done too terribly. The boy, she had found out not long after beginning her care, had hit all the supposed important steps of development that she had read about. He could speak and communicate, and if it was a little hard, she could blame that on the harsh language of the dragons being hard for the human tongue. The boy was intelligent, fast and resourceful, as one learned to be when living in the woods. Igna had taken many hours teaching him plants, animals, weather patterns, and much more that was important to learn out in the wilderness. In turn, he was helpful all on his own, able to do detailed tasks with more ease thanks to the nimble fingers of a human. Through him, she discovered new ways to build shelters and set traps that she had never considered before. They weren’t the best for her, but they would work great for humans.

With all the years spent together, they were close, and happy. They spent days at a time gathering supplies from the woods, hunting, crafting, playing. It had been the combined minds of the two that had led to setting up shelters and hideaways in the woods for lost souls, places to offer protection from the wind and weather. Through all the activity, all the joy, they were together.

The one thing they had never remembered, of course, was that a dragon was simply made to live far longer than any human. As the years wore on, and the boy turned into a man, there was never a thought of longevity on their mind. A man turned old, began to ache and slow, the age of a human lifespan refusing to be ignored. An old man turned to one who knew his time was coming. They were still together, and he insisted they always would be. If he could not be there in body, then he would be there in spirit and soul. He would not move on without her, he promised.

Igna could look around her cave and pick out all the things her son had helped her create. She could remember where the old shelters were, where they’d gone hunting, and all the things he had liked. She knew the places he had loved the most, and she made point of visiting them often. The visits lasted for years, long after humans had forgotten about the beasts that lurked in the depths of the woods.

They continued until she too began to feel the aching restraints of age. She could feel, now, how the man had known when he was nearing the end. As she looked among her cave now, she realized that she did not want all of them to rot away without anyone to care for them. Piece by piece, trinket by trinket, she began to leave them around the forest paths, the shelters that humans visited with strange tools and empty books. She left them outside of tents and camps, just outside the light of the fires they lit at night. She watched, in the dark shadows of the woods, as strange creatures with rounded feet and glowing eyes carried the humans away with her objects, as sky beasts descended to carry humans to faraway lands.

The dragon stayed hidden in the woods, and one day her cave contained only a few things. Her son’s favorites were gathered into a careful, loving pile and she curled around them, resting her head next to them. She closed her eyes then, and when she opened them once more, she felt lighter, younger than before. A warm voice caught her attention, and it was with joyous love that she leapt forward to see her son, young and energetic as he had once been. He had waited, just as he had promised, and now that they could both take their journeys beyond the realm of bodies, they swore to be together forevermore.

Legends surround the woods, of gifts left to those who may have need of them. Legends of rumbling beasts and sparkling red in the shadows, the laughter of a man and the swift sound of a running boy as you walked through the trees. There were many legends and stories, but never were there any that did not tell of how joyous these old spirits seemed to be, even when they were always just out of sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! Hope you liked this, it was from a prompt about describing and talking about a dragon that we imagined! It spiraled far past the original plan, but I'm pretty satisfied with it?  
> I might do some more stuff like this, I'm not sure yet


End file.
